Not just for watching cat videos, then

Biz customers are slowly falling for the charms of the fondleslab and finally calling on resellers to provide them, the boss of Ingram Micro reckons.

According to Greg Spierkel, chief exec at the world's largest IT distie, the touchy tech tablets were "mostly slated" for the consumer market and were typically sold direct by vendors or online retailers.

"But over the last two or three quarters, we've really seen a very significant interest in the value-added reseller community, as well as corporate community, to pick up tablet form factors and then bring those into the business environment," he said during a Q3 conference call with analysts.

Spierkel described the market as a "hardware play" at present but is anticipating a lot of "accessories and software that we can build the business around as the hardware pull-through is happening".

The business channel has so far played a relatively minor part in the UK fondleslab space, with IDC stats revealing that just three per cent of Q2 shipments were via traditional IT distributors.

This is because Apple, which accounts for the majority of sales in the market, sells "99 per cent" of its iPads direct via its stores or online, said Eszter Morvay, research manager at the analyst, but this could change.

"A number of companies in vertical markets are considering tablets for specific applications so there will be a lot of potential for integrators or resellers," she told The Register. ®